Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c23.119

c23.119

The fable about Vasiṣṭha and Agastya is very ancient, because it was current when hymn vii, 33 was composed in or soon after the reign of Sudās, whom it praises and whose chronological position has been fixed (p. 172); and it required time for its development. So far as it concerns Agastya it will be further noticed in chapter XXII. The Vasiṣṭhas were a well known family then, as verses 2–9 show; hence it obviously refers to some progenitor, and therefore Maitrāvaruṇa was a Vasiṣṭha far earlier than Sudās’s priest Vasiṣṭha. Vasiṣṭha Maitrāruṇi is said to have composed the first three verses of hymn ix, 97 and hymns vii, 1 and 3 to 17,⁴ and even all the hymns in the seventh maṇḍala,⁵ but vii, 33 can be his only if Maitrāvaruṇi means a descendant of Maitrāvaruṇa, for Maitrāvaruṇa, as shown, lived far earlier. The epic applies Maitrāvaruṇi to the fourth Vasiṣṭha, who was Kalmāṣapāda’s priest,¹ and this is quite possibly right; but the Bṛhaddevatā calls him Vāruṇi (vi, 33–4), perhaps for short. All that seems clear is that Maitrāvaruṇa was Kuṇḍina and was long prior to Sudās’s Vasiṣṭha, and that Mitrāvaruṇa Vasiṣṭha was earlier still.²